PHILADELPHIA – It’s only fitting that the most agonizing Phillies season of the last five years ends this way.
The Phillies need a combination of two wins or Arizona losses to make the playoffs. They are in the driver’s seat, as Bryce Harper put it on Thursday night. But the magic number has been stuck at 2 since Tuesday night. They had a chance to clinch with help for a third straight day on Friday, but lost 2-0 to the Tampa Bay Rays. The Diamondbacks, who are only one game behind the Phillies and hold the tiebreaker, blew out the Padres 11-4.
Entering play last Saturday, the Diamondbacks were five games back of the Phillies. The lead is down to one.
If the Phillies don’t clinch on Saturday night, they will diminish their chances of winning in the wild card round by having to start Zack Wheeler in the final game of the year.
With every scoreless inning, the boos from the restless crowd at Citizens Bank Park grew louder. Many have put thousands on their credit card for home playoff games that will likely never happen. The refunds will come around slowly like the bats.
Nearly every wild card scenario is still in play as of Saturday morning. They could travel to Atlanta, Chicago or San Diego next week. They could also host the series against the Padres, though that would require the Phillies winning out and the Padres and Cubs losing out.
It was always going to be a challenge for the Phillies to face the two best teams in baseball with little to play for in the final six games of the regular season because they have struggled all year against playoff teams.
They are 22-32 this season against teams currently in playoff position. They have lost the season series against every playoff team except for the Red Sox, White Sox and Padres.
They are still alive because they won seven games this season trailing after eight innings. They are still alive because they have three of the best starting pitchers in baseball. They are still alive because they weren’t dead when they began the season ten games under .500 through 29 games and fired their manager.
But they are flirting with disaster because they can’t hit. After an incredible August, where the Phillies transformed into a patient offense that kept the line moving, they are struggling at the worst possible time. They have scored only two runs in the last 27 innings.
The struggles go beyond that. In September, the Phillies have scored more than three runs in only nine of 22 games. There are concerns all around the lineup, with the biggest ones at the very top.
Kyle Schwarber at times looked destined to challenge Ryan Howard again for the Phillies’ home run record. He has only 13 home runs since the All-Star break. After one of his best months as a Phillie in August, Harper has gone back to being ultra aggressive. Like Schwarber, he has been just OK.
Trea Turner, the club’s No. 2 hitter come hell or high water, is a below replacement level player a year removed from winning the National League batting title and receiving MVP votes.
Luis Arraez, who may or may not play again this season, is the third straight Phillies position player trade deadline acquisition to miss time with injury. At least Harrison Bader was very productive when healthy. Arraez, who has a .678 OPS with the Phillies, has been a huge disappointment.
J.T. Realmuto, who has fallen off a cliff offensively this year, is hitless in his last 32 at-bats. It’s unfair to lump Justin Crawford, who is at least six years younger than the next youngest starter in the lineup, into all of this, but the Phillies could really use a few bunt base hits and stolen bases out of him.
Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh will all finish the year with very similar numbers, but very different stories to their season. Bohm has been the Phillies’ best hitter during the final month of the year, batting .319 with an .869 OPS in September.
The Phillies need someone other than Bohm to get blazing hot if they want to get anywhere in the postseason. Somebody has to hit for them to get there.
On Friday night, the Phillies could only muster four singles. It was the ninth time this season the Phillies failed to record an extra-base hit in a game. Believe it or not, that’s low compared to the Rays, who have gone without an extra-base hit 19 times this year.
The reality is that if the season ended today, every returning hitter with the exception of Harper will finish the year with a lower OPS than the one they had last year. Even if the Phillies squeeze into the tournament, they will have to have answers for why nearly every hitter is worse off now than they were a year ago.
And, even after a transformational deadline, why the Phillies, according to Baseball-Reference, have the least valuable position player group in baseball.
The angst around the lineup usually reaches its peak in October. It has arrived early this year.
“What’s happened five days ago, four days ago, today, at this point, it doesn’t matter,” Don Mattingly said after the game.
If they can clinch tonight, maybe we can laugh and forget that this all happened. Or maybe not.
